Planet Destroyers

[Anders]

Another reason why they didn't torch Yavin could be that it would start a fusion reaction, essentially turning Yavin into a temporary star. Given the range of the Death Star's weapon, it is plausible that this would fry the Death Star. The Emperor might not like that. "Sorry, but we burned your weapon..."

[ed_209a]

This is serious overanalysis, (Just shut up and watch the damn movie, Ed!!) but this website has interesting things to say about shooting beams at planets.

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ds/#superlaser

"The most basic consideration pointing towards some kind of superphysics is the magnitude of the device's energy output. The minimum necessary magitude of the blast that shattered Alderaan is roughly ten thousand times what would be released if the entire mass of the battle station's machinery was annihilated with an equivalent amount of antimatter."

[Ragabash Moon]

Originally Posted by Toubrouk

The Executor would fall into the range of 11-12 miles, not 5.

Here's for your info:
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ssd5mile.html

But even then, can a Star-Destroyer would be able to support his own weight in a 1G environment? I had always had the feeling that those ships had a tough external shell and no structure inside.

Another point; what kind of fuel they are using? Maybe the worse damage a Star Destroyer can do to a planet is by a catastrophic fuel explosion. Let's keep in mind that Anti-Matter do 6D X 2.27 X 10^10 explosive damage by the pound. This let me say that planetfall is the least of their worries...

True, but still the sheer size crashing into, say Coruscant... That's going to take out a large portion of city, and the debris and such kicked up would do some serious damage. That, after all, is similar to what happened to the Nohgri home planet... A battle over their homeworld, ships crashed, and pretty much devastated them, Vader came in and saved their butts, and they became his personal assassins, their entire species serves Darth Vader without question (and later, "Lady Vader" as they call Leia). Vader wouldn't have had the chance to "enslave" them if star destroyers didn't crash on their planet.

As for the support in a 1G enviriontment, that's possible too, but the main concern is it's too damn heavy to leave the atmosphere... it would crash (not to mention the rentry would turn it into a ball of firey death).

[trappedslider]

just give me Unicorn to take out planets.....

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Another reason why they didn't torch Yavin could be that it would start a fusion reaction, essentially turning Yavin into a temporary star. Given the range of the Death Star's weapon, it is plausible that this would fry the Death Star. The Emperor might not like that. "Sorry, but we burned your weapon..."

This could work for Star Wars, but in real life, the hydrogen in a gas giant is far too diffuse to start a runaway fusion reaction. Heat the stuff hot enough and you might get a small contribution from fusion, but less than your input energy. Normal hydrogen is horrid stuff for fusion anyway. To get any reasonable rate of fusion you need heavier isotopes (deuterium, tritium, helium-3, etc.).

Luke

[trappedslider]

Originally Posted by Professor Tanhauser

You mean Unicron?

I think the first planet destroyer was the 'doomsday machine' from trek.

Yea..i knew my spelling was wrong...but give me Unicron..don't have to worry about anything much...or math

[Ragabash Moon]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

This could work for Star Wars, but in real life, the hydrogen in a gas giant is far too diffuse to start a runaway fusion reaction. Heat the stuff hot enough and you might get a small contribution from fusion, but less than your input energy. Normal hydrogen is horrid stuff for fusion anyway. To get any reasonable rate of fusion you need heavier isotopes (deuterium, tritium, helium-3, etc.).

Luke

Yeah, like I said, I think the intention was that the laser wouldn't phase Yavin significantly. I think it might Bespin though, as Bespin is highly flammable, that's the whole point of "Cloud City" they are mining the gases for fuel.

So, really once again, I say that when it comes down to damage enough to destroy a planet, one only needs to say it does, and set stipulations, like maybe a planet the size of earth, kaboom, jupiter, maybe a large chunk and annihilate the atomosphere. The actual amount of damage in dice just seems like unnecessary math to me.

[Toubrouk]

Originally Posted by Ragabash Moon

As for the support in a 1G enviriontment, that's possible too, but the main concern is it's too damn heavy to leave the atmosphere... it would crash (not to mention the rentry would turn it into a ball of firey death).

And even if the Star-Destroyer(tm) burn down in re-entry, we must remember that the hardenend material used to build such a warship is way more dense than the average meteor. So yeah, the impact would create a mess. Let's compare it to the latest "DoomsDay Meteor"; the Apophis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/st...661264,00.html
It's called Apophis. It's 390m wide. And it could hit Earth in 31 years time

Scientists call for plans to change asteroid's path Developing technology could take decades

Alok Jha
Wednesday December 7, 2005
The Guardian

-SKIP-

Nasa has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.

So let's see this; the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was in the magnitude of 14 Kilotons of TNT.
The bigest nuclear bomb ever detonated was the Sovietic bomb named "Tsar Bomba" and had a yield of 50,000 Kilotons.

That "little" rock would have the punch of 1,400,000 kilotons. of TNT.

In GURPS terms, it means 6D x 5.6 X 1010 of damage.

Now, let's imagine something more dense, say a Star-Destroyer(tm) hitting a planet...

+++++

EDIT: I made a mistake in my maths. There's 2000 pounds in a ton, not 1000. this means that the power of the impact must be twice the previous number. It's now correct.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Toubrouk

Now, let's imagine something more dense, say a Star-Destroyer(tm) hitting a planet...

All right I know it's a mistake to get involved in a Star Wars/ physics discussion but here goes:

Isn't Apophis (being a solid rock) actually denser then a basically hollow spacecraft?

Also Apophis is going faster than a Star Destroyer that is just falling from orbit.

[trappedslider]

*wonders what this all has to do with GURPS other than putting it into damge*

Its kindia sad in a strange geeky way when you start to use math to explain the Death star and things like that when its a plot device.....and i would still take unicron to destory any planets